To Fight or Not to Fight?

NCC's Team Discipleship (affectionately referred to by me as "Team D") is reading through the New Testament together, and today we spent time comparing notes from our reading of the book of Luke. Does anyone else find Jesus confusing sometimes?

Let's consider the following:

In Luke 2:36, Jesus said, "And if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one!"

Later in Luke 22:49-51, as the crowd is coming to arrest Jesus, we read this: "When the other disciples saw what was about to happen, they exclaimed, 'Lord, should we fight? We brought the swords!' And one of them struck at the high priest’s slave, slashing off his right ear. But Jesus said, 'No more of this.' And he touched the man’s ear and healed him."

Whuh-huh? We can make sense of it today by saying that Jesus was speaking metaphorically about the swords, but good grief. I'm honestly not sure what Jesus was saying there. And poor Peter. We give him so much grief for denying Jesus, but he tried really hard to do the right thing. He really was willing to lose his life right then and there.